“I will ask you only one time but you must be truthful in your answer or else you will not be healed, do you understand? Good. Do you, Anita, wish to be healed?”

The young woman brings her gaze up to look at the older woman’s face as she waits for her response. It felt like she had no other option. She didn’t have money for proper treatments nor did she live in a big city where doctors were easily obtainable. This woman who had claimed to be a mystic healer was her last resort and from the stories she had heard about her, she sounded like the real deal who could heal her.

“Yes, Healer. I do.”

She grins; all teeth as she brings out a pretty purple glass vial for the young woman to drink. The liquid appears clear behind the tinted glass and the audience oohs and aahs before they fall silent to watch the young, sick woman drink the mysterious ailment given to her by Healer Inez.

Agatha watches as the young woman drinks every last poisoned drop before she hands back the glass vial. Agatha watches her with a trained eye to make sure the poison doesn’t kill her right away. It doesn’t. Jen was still on her side for this little scheme.

Anita turns to face the crowd and beams; flexing her fingers and rolling her shoulders back. The crowd explodes in a loud cheer and a chant about ‘where there is darkness there is light’ over and over again until Agatha feels like it’s time to slink back behind the stage with the young woman in toe. She faces the stage as well as Healer Inez and gives the people a slight nod and curt wave of her hand before she finds Anita’s and clasps her own in hers as she walks her off of the stage. No rushing, no urgency. All is well and you have been healed! Just like my posters and flyers promised!

At the turn of the curtain, Agatha needs to catch Anita in her arms as she passes out from the poison. She’s not dead, not yet. Agatha wanted that to be clear when she offered Jen a pretty price to keep her magical healing tonic non-lethal on the first dose. Agatha wanted to merely play with her food before eating it.

Agatha places the young woman down on the ground and watches the curtain close; listens to the murmur of the crowd beyond it. She would have to count her entrance fees after along with the tips that come around not unlike the pass around of the communion plate. Some of her earnings would have to go to Jen but who cares, she needed that poison to sell herself as Healer Inez: Where there is darkness there is light.

Besides, using the name Agnes had started getting old and people were getting suspicious.

Agatha departs for her dressing room and sits herself down in front of her vanity table. The lights no longer work it in but that’s no issue. With a flick of her wrist, her purple illuminates the mirror and allows her to look at her own face. Agatha Harkness, the most powerful witch from Salem was here in bum-fuck nowhere scamming sick people with the promise of healing tonics and cleansing crystals all for a buck. There had to be some way to put food on the table and right now, this had become Agatha’s best bet.

No one was the wiser.

The purple light from her vanity mirror shifts in the air around her; over her. It travels until it reaches the young woman on the floor and enters her like a needle point. Just enough juice to keep her alive to show the hungry congregate that Healer Inez was no fraud. Sure, young Anita would look a little tired but that was the power of healing, wasn’t it? You always got worse before you got better.

Agatha laughs to herself under her breath as she reapplies her lipstick. Another great benefit of doing a con for so long was that she understood how to gain the trust of strangers. Look and sound put together and they’d be wrapped around your little finger until you said go.

Then they would do anything; give up everything just for some false sense of power.

“What did you try treating this one for, Agatha?”

As sharp as a knife, Jennifer Kale’s voice cuts in the small dressing room. Agatha looks at Jen from the mirror's reflection and takes in the way she’s got her arms crossed over her chest. Agatha laughs again, this time louder as she makes a final touch up of her makeup before slowly standing from her velvet bench.

“Oh, I didn’t ask. Do I really need to know what I’m treating when,” Agatha’s voice changes as she brings it higher and with more grandiose, “Healer Inez can cure every ailment under the sun!”

Agatha hears the disgusted noise fall from Jennifer’s mouth as the potions witch takes a step around the young woman still left on the floor. She stops, just for a second, to hear the sure but shallow breathing. She shakes her head and without even having to look at Agatha from across the room, Jennifer knows Agatha has a smile on her face.

“This is it, Agatha. Whatever tonic you have left, that’s it.”

“It’s not it, Jen and you know it.”

“I’m serious, Harkness. I’m through.”

Agatha laughs out loud; a cackle in the end of it as her head is thrown back and she looks at the dilapidated ceiling. She can feel Jennifer seething in anger and disgust and the knowing that she was aiding in killing her kind. Their kind. And for what?

“You’re not through, Kale. And you’ll never be. You need to survive this world just as much as I do. Sure, we could be at each other’s throats for survival, domination…but isn’t it just easier that you’re my dealer and I give you a portion of our earnings? I think so.”

Agatha watches as Jen’s arms uncross and fall to her side. There’s pain in her eyes and Agatha knows hers would look the same if she hadn’t told herself over and over again that everything she was doing was to live another day; to become a stronger witch. Not to mention the benefits she got from Rio but that was another story.

Right now, it was just her and Jennifer Kale.

“Why don’t you watch my shows?”

Agatha’s question hung sloppily between them and Jennifer could tell right away that she was deflecting her own disappointment. Sure, she was doing all of this for personal gain but the fact that Jen refused to watch people fall victim was by her own decision. If Agatha hadn’t tried so hard not to sound pathetic, Jen wouldn’t have even bothered to answer her.

“Because we could be doing something beneficial with our magic but you always succumb to this. The lowest fucking rung on the goddamn pole. Why? Why do you just…reach so low, Harkness? Scared of actually being a great witch?”

Agatha shakes her head as she moves towards Jen. She can feel the tension between them; crackling like a lightning strike. Tension in the air just like the atmosphere before a rainstorm. Agatha juts out her chin and looks Jen in the eyes,

“You’re hanging on to the same low-level rung just like me, Jen. Don’t you ever fucking forget it.”

The silence grew between them like a heavy fog until the young woman on the floor started to groan. The poison was getting to her and was acting fast.

“Help her, Agatha. Now.”

Jen’s order was met with a sneer from Agatha. If she could growl, she would. She blows an irritated huff out through her mouth as she steps past Jen; shoulder knocking Jen’s purposefully just to piss her off a little bit more. Everything was meant to rile the other up; a fucked up game they liked to play until one or the other eventually folded.

Jen turned so she could watch the growing purple trail leave Agatha’s fingertips to move down towards their victim. Agatha filled her up with some more power to keep her alive just a little bit longer. She couldn’t have the young woman die just yet. Agatha needed to prove to the surely growing crowd tomorrow that there was truth in her healing.

“Happy now, Jen? She’ll be fine here…”

The potions witch shook her head as she took one last look at the woman on the floor before she headed towards the stairs that lead to the exit of the makeshift stage Agatha had erected in the middle of an empty field. It was easier to continue their scam in the country where people didn’t know better; had less access to information. If only these poor fools knew the kind of snake oil saleswoman Agatha Harkness was.

—

The tiny single room hut Agatha has pilfered off of their first victim acted as both their shelter and where Jen concocted the poison to do their deeds.

The potions witch was busy with her herbs laid out on the uneven wooden table; glass vials and mortar and pestle at the ready. Agatha lounged back on the single bed with her hair tossed over her shoulder and nothing else on but a loose men's button up pajama top left unbuttoned. She wanted Jen to stop and stare at her and give in to her desires; to the pull of attraction that bordered murderous.

For that was what they were, psychic healers that were taking 1972 by the storm. Everything was cool and free and possible. Love could heal all as could a crystal hung around one's neck. Slap the word tonic onto anything and you had a sucker emptying their wallet into your lap without a word.

Jen knew it. Agatha knew it. And together, they were two peas in a pod that preyed upon the innocent just to stay alive a little bit longer.

Jennifer moved slowly on purpose; not wanting to fall into Agatha’s arms just yet. She could make that witch sit and stew longer; for eternity if she had the choice. She was awful and selfish and didn’t care about women or witches. She wanted power; more and more of it until it eventually made her empty. She had no remorse for what she did and the many lives she took. She didn’t care how many families she destroyed and how many children she allowed to become orphans without their mothers. All Agatha wanted was want. More and more, wanting and needing until she was so full of herself that Jen could see right through her facade.

And yet, the potions witch still fell into bed beside Agatha every single night and tonight, would be no different. She was still bound and she still needed to survive. Places out here in the middle of nowhere with tight communities made it hard for Jen to be a midwife. Everyone trusted the same women who had been delivering babies for years but for her to step into this sacred and secured place, it simply put these young mothers off. Who was Jen for them to trust around their unborn babies?

“You’re not seriously over there waiting for me to come into bed, are you, Harkness?”

Jen doesn’t look up from her concoction as she mashes down the herbs into the mortar. She can hear Agatha huff and shift against the bed frame; the old rusting metal squeaking under her weight.

“If you think this is some…goddamn domestic play you’re performing for me, I’m not falling for it. Just say you want a warm body, Agatha.”

Another low blow but Jen didn’t care. Agatha was a big girl and could handle the truth. This is what she wanted, wasn’t it? No actual connection between any of her kind. She would use them and then toss them away when it no longer benefited her. Jen assumed sex was the same, she knew her and Agatha wouldn’t be much more after this scheme of theirs ran dry.

“Oh Jen, don’t you think you’ve made enough poison to kill all those young women for tonight? Come on, Kale…come to bed…”

Jen scoffed, shook her head and put down her tools of the trade. The mortar hit the wooden table with a thud and Agatha lifted her head and eyes to stare at Jen. It was then that the potions witch finally looked across the room and over at Agatha. She had taken her pajama top off and had discarded it to the floor beside the bed.

She could leave; pack up whatever possessions she had here and get back into town, into a big city where she would feel safe. She could find her people again; women just like her who accepted her and treated her right. She could walk right past Agatha and out that door that was crooked on its hinges; past the makeshift stage and hail a car and never see Agatha Harkness again.

Or, she could slide into bed and lift up the hem of her cotton knit dress and find herself between Agatha’s legs.

“I thought you were leaving,” Agatha huffs as she reaches forwards; fingers grabbing the hem of Jennifer’s dress as she roughly hikes it up past Jen’s thighs. She does her best to caress against the pantyhose that covered Jen’s legs. Would she push her away if she ripped through them? Skin to skin to heighten their connection?

“Don’t push it, Harkness,” Jen hisses through her clenched teeth as she leans forwards, towards Agatha. She brings her right hand out to push Agatha back onto the bed. The springs make her bounce and she loses her grip on Jen’s dress. Jennifer laughs and moves in closer; sits down a little bit harder onto Agatha’s leg. She doesn’t need to peel off her pantyhose or lift her dress up over her head. She could get off and use Agatha just like this.

She had done it already so many times before; almost every night had been just like this.

Bound or not, Jennifer still had some dominance over Agatha Harkness. She knew it was because Agatha needed her and wouldn’t dare push her so over the edge that Jen wouldn’t help her any longer. She needed Jennifer to survive, even if she wouldn’t admit it. If Jen wanted to push her around in bed and use her without giving Agatha an inch, Agatha would allow her to do so.

“That’s it, Witch Killer…you just lay there and look pretty and desperate for me. You can do that, right? Mystic Healer of my dreams?”

Jen grinned at the moan she got out of Agatha and the flush that covered her face. Writhing and rolling her hips upwards towards Jen, the potions witch couldn’t help but to laugh at the sight underneath her. Agatha hated everyone and yet would do anything for some companionship. She craved it just as badly as she craved killing.

“You like that, Witch Killer? You like being used? I bet it feels nice to let the tables turn…”

“Oh…god, Jen…”

Agatha felt the sinking of Jennifer’s body down onto hers as she straddled Agatha’s left thigh. She could feel wetness through the pantyhose fabric and onto her leg. Just as much as Jen was getting Agatha off, she was just as turned on about this whole fucked up mess they had gotten themselves into with one another.

Jennifer buckled down as she fell into a rhythm of back and forth, grinding down to feel that beautiful almost numbing sensation of her clit against her underwear; against her pantyhose and the warmth of Agatha’s thigh. The friction was beautiful, delicious. Maybe a warm body was better than no body; a bunch of blankets and pillows between her legs instead.

The rocking was met with Agatha’s hands reaching out in front to grab onto Jen once more; fingers finding edges of Jennifer’s dress to merely pinch and hang onto. She let her mouth hang open and breathed hard; slips of moans and whines escaped and her brows furrowed as she felt her own arousal between her legs. Agatha’s clit throbbing against nothing; no relief against friction. Sure, she could touch herself or grab Jen’s hand to use her fingers. She could have left her own underwear on to feel them soak and have the cotton rub against her skin.

But, Agatha liked torturing herself just as much as she liked torturing others. It made the pleasure almost sweeter somehow.

“...Can you feel that, Witch Killer?...Unraveling…falling apart?...”

Agatha sighs something pretty and Jen can feel her heart breaking. There had always been whispers about Agatha Harkness being a succubus; artificial sweetness to pull you in and make you drowsy before she came for the kill. But, god, the sounds this woman made underneath her.

“Are you…going to kill that woman tomorrow, Agatha?”

She can’t help it; moaning at Jen’s question as she bucks her hips upwards to let her thigh dig into Jennifer’s skin. She watches through half-lidded eyes as Jen collects herself; stops herself from falling forwards. She watches the disgusted look appear on Jennifer’s face as the moan was more than enough of an answer for her.

That young, sick woman would die just like all the other ones before her. A surge of healing from Agatha before she turned that magic around and used it to drain every last drop of life from her. It would happen again and again; a cycle too ugly to bear. Agatha knew, as she reached forward once more for Jennifer, that she would still be by her side until this dwindled down. Healing tonic would be passed from Jen’s hands into hers and coin would be passed from Agatha’s hands to Jen’s.

They completed a broken, upsetting cycle.